Time to get the right gear for the job, I just got back from an Alaska cruise 4 weeks ago, i wasn't close to the whales but i did get some shots, what failed me was that the lens was in focus before the SR was ready and i ended up losing shots due to shake.

I'm surprised the SR in the k5 stays wound up during the half press active phase whereas previous Pentax's only wound up SR during shutter phase.

AFAIK SR is active as long as the metering is active. Therefore I set the C 1/4 'Meter Operating Time' to '3' (30 sec).